Two undertrials escaped early on Monday morning from the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH), despite five policemen guarding them and there being a separate police outpost on the hospital campus.
Sohan Rai and Jitendra Paswan, charged under the Arms Act and accused of a loot respectively, were admitted at the prisoners' ward of the hospital.
Both were inmates of Hajipur Jail in Vaishali district and had been brought to the hospitals for treatment. The nature of their ailments has not been revealed.
They escaped around 4am, and everyone from the police outpost personnel to the hospital administration put the blame squarely on the shoulders of the five Vaishali policemen guarding them.
The Vaishali police suspended four of the five cops. Vaishali superintendent of police (SP) Rakesh Kumar admitted laxity on the part of the cops on guard and said that is why four of them had been suspended.
Asked why action was not was taken against the fifth, the SP said the fifth cop had informed his seniors about the incident and it showed that he was present on duty unlike the four others.
"The reason cited by the four cops, that the prisoners escaped from the bathroom, cannot be justified," said Rakesh. "Where were they at that time? That means that they were not on duty, and so action has been taken against them."
The PMCH superintendent as well as his deputy said the hospital was not responsible for the security of the prisoners. Superintendent Lakhendra Prasad said the prisoners' ward of the hospital was under police security.
"The prisoners have escaped from police custody. The police here keep the ward locked all the time. Doctors are allowed in the ward only when police let them," he said.He admitted that the hospital has not installed closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in the ward. "However," he added, "we have got CCTV cameras installed outside the ward. We can provide the footage to police as and when required."
Deputy superintendent Deepak Tandon admitted that the hospital had not provided any security outside the prisoners' ward, but said security of the ward was the police's responsibility.
"The hospital's security guards have been engaged outside the emergency buildings and other buildings apart from near the barricade which has been created only a few metres away from the emergency building, but no security guard has been provided outside the building which houses the prisoners' ward. We already have a shortage of security guards so we can't provide it in the wards," Tandon said.
Personnel at the PMCH police outpost also shrugged off responsibility for the escape.
"The police are supposed to deploy armed cops outside the prisoners' ward," said D.K. Singh, the in-charge of the police outpost at the PMCH. "In this case, Vaishali police had posted their cops. The cops posted at the police outpost and Patna police have no responsibility in the surveillance of the prisoners."
